Flighty

Prompted – as I often am – my Ruth’s blog post at the start of the month – I’ve been thinking a little on blogging lately & how my attention to blogging ebbs & flows. My attention is like the water ways around here dry and still or full and raging. Like many things in my life I am all ideas and no action so often but the thing with knitting, and spinning, is that it’s till there when you get back to it. The thing is, things don’t knit or spin themselves, they require time & patience – things I have sparingly (but I am working on that – well the patience anyway!).

When I did the Certificate of Spinning at the Spinner’s & Weaver’s Guild I vowed I would spin for 15 minutes every day – it lasted a while. I joined up the Yahoo Groups Monthly Dishcloth KAL and vowed to keep up – but I never seem to do so consistently (although I do knit all of the cloths each year even if it is a race to the end). When I started playing with the drum carder I bought a heaps of beautiful silk to blend with wool (in 2009!) to spin up the yarn for Henley Perfected – the batts are around somewhere. I engaged the family to pack up my fleeces to send off for processing – but they are still sitting in big bales in the shed (I got cold feet – what if my wool “isn’t good enough”; what if no-one will buy any & I spend a whole heap of money getting it processed into roving?). I started to tidy the study so I could get the the knitting corner & sort it out – but I had to go to work (it really gets in the way!). A friend phoned me last September to say he had some coloured fleeces from his Merino X sheep on his verandah – then called me again this week to say it was still there. It’s a pattern – a head that is easily turned; a flighty mind (maybe just super busy?).

Well, I am going to make a change – it’s good to get inspired every now & then so that things get finished! I went past my friends house & picked up the 2 garbage bags of fleece – and, to my delight, I think my fleeces are better! Got to love having a small flock that is so loved. On Thursday I flicked about 60gm of the fibre & over the last few days I have been spinning – just for a little time each day but a little time is more than none! I want to do the Susanna IC KAL on Ravelry and, while casting around for a yarn I came back to the whole “Wow – it’s going to cost me $30-$60 to get the yarn & I have all this fibre……”. I started Googling “how much fibre do I need to spin 1000 yards lace weight” but the results were not very informative. I cast around the internet for yarn again. I emailed Charli at IxChel Bunny. I sat down & flicked some fibre – 60gm took about 1/2 an episode of “Doc Martin” – done. I figured once I have this spun up I’ll flick another 60gm & spin it for plying & that will give me plenty to start the KAL but then I thought maybe I should dye the yarn? I’ll show you when the first skein is done & you can tell me what you think……

Anyway – I told my husband that from now on my summers where going to be about spinning & my winters were for knitting so my newest plan is to spin for 5-15 minutes every day from now til Christmas, it will be interesting to see how much is achieved …..